Integrative Medicine & Functional Medicine

​What is integrative medicine and functional medicine?

 

Integrative medicine and functional medicine (colloquially referred to as "holistic medicine") share the same roots of focusing on whole-person healing, in body, mind, and spirit. This is done through using the best of scientific evidence, lifestyle interventions, as well as therapeutic modalities that have withstood the test of time, to achieve healing at a fundamental level. 

 

Integrative medicine is the current term used to refer to the field of medicine that applies the above principles systematically and rigorously. Older terms, such as alternative medicine (which refers to the use of non-conventional therapeutics instead of conventional Western medicine) or complementary medicine (which refers to the use of non-conventional therapeutic strategies along with concurrent conventional treatments, albeit not in an integrated manner), are now less frequently used.

 

Integrative medicine integrates conventional Western (allopathic) medicine with complementary therapeutic modalities and lifestyle interventions in a way that allows an individual to truly achieve health through a holistic medicine approach. An integrative medicine doctor helps patients remove the barriers to healing and support the body’s innate ability to heal itself, making it possible to reduce or eliminate the use of medications that are often costly and side-effects laden.

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Prominent national organizations in the U.S. that advance the field of integrative medicine include the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health (ACIMH), an organization made up of over 70 academic Institutions and health systems, and the Academy of Integrative Health & Medicine (AIHM), an inter-professional membership association of health care practitioners. The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) is a U.S. government agency (one of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health) that funds research related to integrative medicine.

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Functional medicine can be considered a subspecialty of integrative medicine. What distinguishes functional medicine from the more general integrative medicine is the use of a systems approach to understand how an individual’s underlying physiologic processes, lifestyle influences, environmental factors, and unique health history combine to manifest in imbalances, dysfunctions, and diseases. A functional medicine doctor applies this understanding to develop personalized treatment plans that address health and disease at a fundamental level. This systems approach has been refined over time by leaders in functional medicine. A standardized, replicable methodology of delivering this type of clinical care is now promulgated by the Institute for Functional Medicine, a national organization that provides training and certification for licensed health care practitioners in functional medicine.

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For patients who have chronic symptoms or diseases, or for those who wish to stay healthy and enjoy longevity with a good quality of life, removing the body’s barriers to healing and supporting the body’s ability to constantly heal itself is fundamental to the practice of integrative and functional medicine, and makes it possible to reverse or prevent the development of disease in the first place. When this is achieved, patients marvel at how their lives are forever changed, in ways that would not have been possible without having taken the path to health and healing through the mindful practice of integrative medicine and functional medicine.

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A holistic approach to health is associated with better health outcomes

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The World Health Organization defines health as a “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

 

To achieve and recover health holistically, a whole-person perspective and approach is fundamentally important, as championed in the principles and practice of integrative medicine and functional medicine. Clinical experience and research have shown that such a holistic approach to health—which considers Food as Medicine, the gut microbiome, the gut-brain connection, environmental factors and the exposome, the mind-body connection, lifestyle choice, and individuality of body constitution—not only leads to good health outcomes but is cost-effective as well.

 

For example, in a randomized clinical trial that included men with early-stage prostate cancer, people who followed a holistic lifestyle intervention had decreased blood levels of PSA, while those who were in the control group, receiving no holistic intervention, had increased PSA levels (suggesting progression of prostate cancer). What is even more remarkable is that the blood from people who followed the holistic intervention inhibited the growth of prostate cancer cells in the laboratory almost eight times more than the blood from people in the control group. This suggests that the holistic lifestyle intervention resulted in the presence of substances in the blood that have anti-cancer effects.

 

A hallmark feature of aging is the shortening of telomeres (regions at the ends of chromosomes with protective functions), which is associated with disease and is the subject of a 2009 Nobel Prize. While there is currently no conventional medicine intervention or drug proven to stop or reverse telomere shortening as an anti-aging or disease-modifying therapy, individuals with early prostate cancer who followed a holistic lifestyle intervention favorably increased the telomere lengths in their blood cells over five years, while those in the control group without the holistic intervention had shortened telomere lengths over time.

 

Research has also shown that a holistic approach to health is associated with reduced health care costs. In a study that included patients with coronary heart disease, people who participated in holistic lifestyle interventions were hospitalized less often (by 30-46%) than those who did not participate in such interventions. A study by Harvard researchers showed that a mind-body intervention reduced the need to utilize health care resources by 43% after one year and decreased emergency department visits by half. (To read more about this topic, see Dr. Wang’s full blog here.)

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Conditions we treat through the integrative and functional medicine approach include (not an exhaustive list):